User blog:OhItsFluttershy/Interacting With Fluttershy (Or At Least Her Player)
I've been seeing some tweets recently popping up on Twitter about me and I'd just like to take a moment or two to address them. Some ponies have been saying that I'm hard to talk to, or that I'm ignoring their tweets, or that it's hard to get a scene with me, or that I straight up don't want to talk with non-established ponies. Rest assured, this is not true. Or at least not completely. I do admit that I'm often a little less outgoing or adventurous than other players when it comes interacting with new ponies. But it's not because I hate talking to new ponies, or that I'm some stuck-up motherbucker. It's just that it's incredibly difficult to talk to so many ponies at once! So I decided to address some of these issues with a few answers. Please note that these are not guidelines (we have those already) but instead just some things to note when trying to talk to me for the first time. Swarming: Please, if I can ask but one thing, do not swarm me! This is probably the main reason that I "ignore" players. Oftentimes I'm talking to somepony else concurrently and just can't address you without breaking the world of the RP. If you see that I'm talking to a pony, I suggest you wait a bit before coming up to say hello. Or, if you happen to know who I'm talking to, say hello to them and then make introductions, organically. Don't force a hello. The problem is, with Flutter, it's very difficult for me to talk to 7 ponies at once, especially if you catch me while I'm doing my own scene. I like meeting new ponies, and I like RPing interesting situations that may arise from those meetings. (For instance, the other day a pony called Rain Chaser was introduced to me when he almost crashed into me, which was very funny.) But it's impossible for me to make nice when I got one pony telling me his life story while another is asking me for a pet. (And trust me, we'll get to that in a second...) I just can't follow it. I know that some ponies are excellent with dealing with multiple ponies at once, with Applejack being the standard bearer for this. However, like the real Fluttershy, I'm not good with crowds. So, if I'm talking to a pony, and you say hi, and I don't reply, this isn't me maliciously ignoring you. I'm just trying to keep the previously established conversation in check. If this happens to you, just wait for me to finish, then we'll chat. Spatial Reasoning: TwitterPonies is big, waaaay bigger than it was when we started out. As a result, I sometimes feel a little like I'm applying the same rules as I did when it was just a small little group of players than it is now, where over 70 new player accounts can start up in 48 hours. That's a real statistic, by the way. I think we have almost 1,300 accounts registered with the "mlp_" tag. As a result, we literally have ponies popping up from the ground. So, let me explain what spatial reasoning is. In the RP world, we usually start out the first tweet in a session with the location in asterisks. (i.e. *in her garden, watering her plants*) This is so we can establish where that player is at that time. Once we do that, we can move away to just speaking in dialogue for each tweet ("Oh my, my petunias are coming in wonderfully!") and still have that first tweet carry over, so we're not lost with every subsequent tweet. With me so far? Because of spatial reasoning, when I'm looking over my feed, I can get a pretty good idea where everypony is. The problem, of course, is that I don't follow every pony that I may do a scene with, and if we're interacting for the first time that is almost certainly the case. So when I'm, say, in the garden watering my plants, and the first tweet you say to me is "hi Fluttershy do you need help?" I'm a bit lost. Who are you? Did you happen to be walking by the Everfree Forest and saw me watering my plants? Or were you across town just a minute ago and are suddenly by my side? Either way, I need a lead in, something so I know that you're a part of the RP group and not just an audience member chiming in. Plus, it's just a good rule of thumb to give a little warning before starting a session. So, in this scenario, a good tweet to do before coming over would be "*trots along the creek, sees @mlp_fluttershy in her garden* Hmm, she looks like she could use a hoof." That gives me a little time to get my bearings and prepare for you, and not suddenly go off in a different direction and accidently leave you in the dust. Just don't teleport yourself randomly into a conversation. That's annoying and throws me off-guard. Just one tweet of notice is all I ask before having a chat. The Cottage: Don't ever, ever, ever come into Fluttershy's cottage without first knocking and waiting me to answer the door. I won't like it, and I'll just flat out ignore you. Don't do it if you see I'm in there (I might be doing a scene that can't be interrupted) and especially don't do it if I'm not there, unless we're doing a scene or storyline together and you've specifically asked me first, either in character or out. This is one of my few unbendable rules, and I will be seriously annoyed and possibly block you if you do this repeatedly. Pets: Oy vey. Let's talk about pets. Each of the manes has a certain something that ponies will always come up and ask them for. Everypony asks Twilight for a book, or Rarity for a dress, or Rainbow Dash for a race. For Fluttershy, it's pets. Everypony wants a pet from Fluttershy, and it's by far the most requested thing I'm asked to do. And it gets real old, real fast. I'm not saying that there are no good moments to be derived from giving ponies pets. One of my favorite moments of the past couple of months was giving a pet maggot named Wiggly to an OC pony named Norby Nurb, where he subsequently turned into a butterfly. That's cute and fun. However, the problem is most of the time, giving out a pet in just kind of a time suck. You ask for a pet, I ask what kind you want, you say you don't know (or, more often, "One that can fly!"), I arbitrarily choose a pet for you, you love it, try to pay me, I say I don't need a payment, you leave. Nothing interesting happens, it's literally like I'm RPing a retail job and you're the customer. That's not what TwitterPonies is about! It's about fun! So, what does this mean for you? Are you not allowed to ask me for a pet? The answer is "of course you can"! Pets are fun, you can use them to do sillier situations than you're character might allow. But we're not talking about just getting a pet, we're talking about the scene. And the fact of the matter is that most of these scenes are just boring to play out. So, when you come asking for a pet, please, I beg of you, have something in mind for the scene! Make it so that it's fun to play out and that we're not just going through the motions. For example, maybe you want a kitty, but are allergic to cat hair, so I give you a special hairless kitten. Or perhaps you want a pet that can dig really well, so I give you a mole. Seriously, it doesn't have to be something big, just a nugget of an idea that gives us both a little room to play with. And don't make it overly broad, like "can fly." If it can fly, I can give you a bird, bug, or bat, and whatever kind I choose is going to be based on my mood. Maybe try "a pet that can fly super fast" or "a pet that can fly, but isn't too loud" or "a pet that can fly, but not too far away." Anything like that, broad enough to play around with but specific enough that we're not just pulling anything out of thin air. If you already know exactly what type of animal you want, then you probably don't need to see me. You want a falcon? Then get a falcon! Catch one, find a baby falcon on the ground! Don't waste both of our times by coming to me and playing out a scene that's been done to death already. Oh, and don't come to me asking for a pet on behalf of another pony. It's Fluttershy's policy with adoptions that each owner must be present to get their pet. That's it for now, I may edit this is something else comes to my attention. Please, I'm not trying to leave anypony out of the fun. It's just hard to keep up with so many eager players! Follow this advice, and I'm sure that we'll be exchanging pleasantries in no time. Category:Blog posts